Time to start another capture, and this time it’s student teacher Nagase Jun. To start off, I came into this thinking that Keima would have to capture a real teacher; something that I think would have been pretty interesting to watch. Looking past the inherent problems with dating your teacher, it would have made for a some interesting situations and a great arc right?!

While it didn’t happen exactly how I expected it to, this has to be one of the best episodes of Kami Nomi to date. With the whole formula of a capture being thrown upside down, things felt strong from start to finish.

I’m probably starting to sound like a broken record, but I’m glad that the show took the time to show how much Keima actually cares about each of the girls he saved. He may go on and on about how real girls are no match for 2d ones, but his actions are far louder then his words. Keima deserves to shine like this!

「たどりついたらいつも雨ふり」 (Tadoritsuitara Itsumo Amefuri)
“It Always Rains at the End of a Hard Journey”

I’ve stated this many times before, but it kills me to watch Keima invest so much time and effort into saving these girls with loose souls inside of them only for their memories to be erased and have no clue about how hard Keima worked to save them. Also, if you haven’t picked up this show because you were afraid of another season of captures after captures, shame on you.

The only thing I can think of at this moment is how amazing Elsie looks without her hair tied back. It’s amazing how the entire momentum of the plot, story, and general conflict of the episode was canceled out in the single moment Elsie’s hair decided to do that “flick” movement.

I can honestly say that I haven’t been this excited after an episode of Kami Nomi in a while. After the first two episodes this season, I was a little nervous that I would lose interest in this show — but I’m overjoyed that whatever they did this week really worked for me.

I’d rather not say it, but I wasn’t quite sure how to feel after such a quick capture. While I wasn’t a hundred percent sure about what was going to happen, I had a pretty good idea in my mind. As the episode did a pretty good job foreshadowing it last week, the idea of trying to expel a certain part of yourself in an effort to become a stronger you sounds as ridiculous as it was to type it out.

After a season without Keima and Elsie to brighten up my week, I’m glad that this show still has all the things I love about it. Besides never taking itself too seriously, I’m glad that Keima seems to have reverted back to his otaku, 2d loving self. While I wouldn’t say it was a complete relapse, it felt nice to see him go crazy over his current predicament.

「神以上、人間未満」 (Kami Ijou, Ningen Miman)
“Higher than a God, Lower than a Man”

There’s no way I can write six posts simultaneously, but it’s kind of scary how Keima’s zealous attitude towards gaming mirrors my blogging one. In fact, this finale served as an “anime reality check” of sorts, as contradictory as that may sound. From an outsider’s perspective, our behaviors may as well be perceived as a case of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Books, books, and more books. They may have been a mere plot device to drive Shiori’s arc, but they were used impeccably to give off a surreal conclusion to it as well. Compared to the previous two episodes, a surprising amount of detail went into the mountain of books in the background too, making this week’s one a notch above in terms of production value.

Visually, Shiori’s arc is undoubtedly the slowest and most uneventful one thus far. However, despite the absolute dearth of things happening on screen, I still find myself amused by how long Keima will stand quietly in front of her, trying to figure out what she’s thinking, only for her to eventually walk off without a word.

「大きな壁の中と外」 (Ookina Kabe no Naka to Soto)
“Inside and Outside the Large Wall”

If there’s a book girl that needs to be played, Hanazawa Kana is poised for the task regardless of whether or not the series is titled Bungaku Shoujo. For this first episode of Shiomiya Shiori’s arc, we didn’t really get to see too much of the girl behind that quiet, intellectual, and shy exterior though. In lieu, there was a fair bit of spillover from Elsie’s episode last time, which I rather enjoyed given all of her quirky interactions with Keima.

As an interesting change of pace, this week’s episode doesn’t start a new girl’s arc and focuses on Elsie instead. We can never have too much Elsie can we? I know I can’t, not when she’s adorable as “hell” even when she’s upset about Keima hating her cooking. Evidently, the whole “it doesn’t taste nearly as bad as it looks” reaction he had when she force-fed him doesn’t mean much when his lunch has tons of eyeballs and is squirming about.

After three episodes, Kanon’s arc finally comes to a close. Given its progression, I question whether three episodes was really necessary to begin with though. Looking back, they probably reiterated her insecurities a lot more than they had to to get that point across, and also took the better portion of an entire episode to show how Keima was being supportive of her — something that Ayumi’s arc managed to do just as well in a single episode.